Re:Announcing .NET Core 2.0
by tracker1 on Monday August 14, 2017 @07:09PM
(#15013856)
The first things you should do is identify what it is you're trying to create, what your skills are, and what your options are. Also, what platforms you need to support.
The more platforms you need to support with the fewer people, then the more web-based options may appeal to you. Electron works well enough for a lot of applications, and gives you the big three desktop environments. Judicious use of Cordova gets you the two big mobile options. It won't run as buttery smooth as native, and is very easy to let bloat if you don't keep on top of your dependencies.
Java is a bit less liked for desktop applications, mainly because they tend to look clunky, or are otherwise requiring a larger runtime as a prerequisite.
.Net has similar issues. For desktop applications the Xamarin tooling, now in the box, is a decent option, but you will get a few headaches. While I personally prefer C# as a language to Java, the latter is definitely got a bigger community.
QT, etc, are non-starter if you also need a mobile platform.
In the end it really depends on what you need to accomplish and what skills/tools are brought to the table. I'd lean towards using Electron/Cordova for any proof of concept just because it's easy to move fast on that side. I also happen to like Node a lot. You may also want to consider ReactNative as a first or second pass depending on your targets, again.
The more platforms you need to support with the fewer people, then the more web-based options may appeal to you. Electron works well enough for a lot of applications, and gives you the big three desktop environments. Judicious use of Cordova gets you the two big mobile options. It won't run as buttery smooth as native, and is very easy to let bloat if you don't keep on top of your dependencies.
Java is a bit less liked for desktop applications, mainly because they tend to look clunky, or are otherwise requiring a larger runtime as a prerequisite.
.Net has similar issues. For desktop applications the Xamarin tooling, now in the box, is a decent option, but you will get a few headaches. While I personally prefer C# as a language to Java, the latter is definitely got a bigger community.
QT, etc, are non-starter if you also need a mobile platform.
In the end it really depends on what you need to accomplish and what skills/tools are brought to the table. I'd lean towards using Electron/Cordova for any proof of concept just because it's easy to move fast on that side. I also happen to like Node a lot. You may also want to consider ReactNative as a first or second pass depending on your targets, again.